Graphic by Ivory Morales/OutWrite
Content warning: homophobia, death, hate crimes, slurs
This January closed with police raids on Seattle gay bars. In a scene reminiscent of 20th-century police raids of queer bars, officials with flashlights entered a bar unannounced, took pictures of patrons, and cited a bartender for having an exposed nipple. It’s no secret that queer bars have been heavily policed throughout American history, or that nowadays, lesbian bars are practically nonexistent in the U.S. Queer spaces still exist, but we have lost the thriving queer sex culture of the 1980s largely because of the American political response to the AIDS crisis.
The AIDS crisis, caused by the HIV virus which debilitates the immune system, was a watershed moment for the queer community. With the loss of hundreds of thousands of primarily queer men of color, the American government’s willful, violent negligence allowed AIDS to kill an entire generation of queer people. Despite the tragedy of their situations, many of them died fighting. Only through the tireless efforts of queer AIDS activists do we have the foundation for queer movements and the science that allows people living with HIV/AIDS to lead long, fulfilling lives today.
AIDS reached epidemic levels in 1981. It killed 130 people by the year’s end, and the public dubbed it the “gay cancer.” Disturbingly, President Ronald Reagan took four more years to publicly acknowledge AIDS. Considering that in the year prior the disease killed 8,406 people, Reagan’s failure to acknowledge AIDS and provide funding for clinical trials and education to vulnerable populations was intentional and malicious. Across the U.S., political and religious leaders viewed queer people as expendable: one Texas mayor declared that his plan to stop AIDS was to “shoot the queers.” Many believed that AIDS was God’s fatal judgment against the “sinful homosexual lifestyle,” so the disease was permitted to wreak devastation for the better part of a decade.
Such a horrific loss of queer lives consequently resulted in the eradication of generational queer culture. Alongside the deaths of queer culture’s progenitors, AIDS provided American politicians the impetus to enact policies that did away with the physical spaces of flourishing queer life. For instance, in the 1980s, New York City’s Christopher Street was a bustling hub of queer nightlife. Chock-full of movie theaters, clubs, and more, the community embraced queer sex. In 1995, however, zoning laws passed which essentially forced all of the queer spaces to close down under the guise of limiting adult businesses.
The community lost not only lovers and friends, but the culture of public queer sex. Queer people pushed for safer sex practices to reduce the risk of developing AIDS, so the previous risky sexual practices that had characterized this culture faded into obscurity. In addition, the external fear and stigma around contracting AIDS placed demonizing scrutiny on gay men’s sex lives. Queer sex has never been acceptable; pleasure in queer sex is even less so. In a climate where gay men were being blamed for contracting the very disease which was killing them, queer men like gay activist Douglas Crimp had no space to mourn queer sex in the messy, reckless forms it once took.
The literal logistics of queer sex became more difficult as politicians weaponized the public anxiety around AIDS to raze queer spaces. This combination of stigma against queer sex and the resulting political destruction of public queer spaces forced gay men to turn to phone lines or risk entering spaces shared with straight people — and the accompanying threat of homophobic violence — to have sex.
The destruction of queer spaces for public sex endangered the people depending on them for pleasure and community. Without these spaces to connect physically, politically, and socially with each other, queer people — especially our youth — have been pushed online.
The advent of the Internet has improved queer youth’s lives in some respects. A 2022 study reveals how queer youth often develop their identities within online queer communities. The anonymity of online spaces alleviates the fear of being rejected or endangered by sharing your queerness in person. While there are definite benefits to online queer communities, they’ve also siloed youth in echo chambers where they only interact with queerness through Fandom and lack the experiences and knowledge of queer elders.
Queer media representation can provide young people with meaningful examples of queerness and outlets to explore their identities, and fandoms can offer queer connections which are often inaccessible to those growing up in conservative areas. However, we cannot uncritically consume mainstream queer content without understanding the historical events and queer movements which have preceded us. Otherwise, we risk unknowingly absorbing the puritanical, sex-negative mindsets that homophobes have historically weaponized against us.
Queer people who believe there should be no kink at pride champion the innocence of children as the reason why kink, or anything they view as inherently sexual, should be censored. Not only is this the exact argument that homophobes use against queerness in general, but it posits that assimilating into normative society is even possible for us. This push towards assimilation ignores the reality that the State which systematically attempted to passively kill queer people off in the 1980s and ‘90s will not suddenly cease viewing us as faggots if we stop wearing leather in public.
In a similar push towards assimilation, some queer online spaces question the validity of using neopronouns, or pronouns outside of she/her, he/him, or they/them. Some view using neopronouns as asking “too much” of mainstream society and consequently holding the queer community back from achieving acceptance. Once again, this assimilationist stance discards the historical reality that queerness began as a political resistance against societal norms. When we police how other queer people express themselves, we become our own oppressors.
Undoubtedly, the isolation and under-education of queer youth is the direct result of the American government’s response to AIDS and later queerphobic policy. But when the American schooling system and media actively seek to suppress queer history and culture, we as queer people must educate ourselves and seek out real-life community. Without doing this work, we risk rehashing the same fruitless assimilationist views and policing of others’ identities, effectively parroting the conservative talking points used against us.
We have to embrace real-life connections. Looking into another queer person’s eyes and recognizing what we owe each other is the first step towards queer liberation. The liberation we must collectively pursue extends beyond struggle and into cultivating care and joy. In a world that seeks to eradicate difference, the pursuit of living as queer people is an act of political resistance.
I hope we turn back to the vibrant, sex-positive, activism-focused communities that bloomed before queerphobic politicians shut down their spaces and culture. For example, the Clit Club of the 1990s models a community-centric, politicized, pleasure-focused queer space I hope to see us recreate today. It was a primarily lesbian sex club on Christopher Street in New York, and one of the few queer spaces which embraced transgender people and served a racially diverse clientele.
Queer sex clubs were about sex, of course; BDSM demonstrations occurred on the floor, and safe sex pamphlets and packages waited on center tables. Queer sex in and of itself is something worthy of being protected, mourned, and celebrated. Yet these clubs fulfilled a role beyond nurturing the physical act of sex; they were vital microcosms of queer joy and community.
After concluding planning sessions for political actions, queer activists would congregate at clubs like the Clit Club to let loose and recharge. The love, care, and pleasure occurring in these spaces directly impacted the efficacy of queer liberation movements. Queer public spaces uplifted the unabashed expression of queer sexuality, connection, and education.
My hope for us as young queer people is to not fear each other, our bodies, our pleasure, or our political power, but that through a remembrance of the radical lives and politics of our predecessors, we too break out of the trap of acceptability and pursue unabashed queer expression. I urge all of us who are able to reconnect with our living, breathing community to do so, so that together we can love and fuck and coalition-build for a sexier, freer queer future.
Credits:
Author: Rainer Lee (He/Him)
Artist: Ivory Morales (They/Them)
Copy Editors: Maya Parra (She/Her), Emma Blakely (They/She/He)